mypasswordis Posted January 9, 2017 Report Posted January 9, 2017 I read a couple paragraphs beyond the first paragraph, so not much more. From what I read, you must have a DAC with the special decoder to hear an MQA file the way it was intended. Otherwise, it is just a 24-bit 48kHz file with noise on the 3 LSB, lowering effective resolution to 13 bits. The MQA file decoded claims to have "folded" into it the upper 48kHz I believe, so generates something akin to 24/96 (lossy). There is also some other metadata which tells the DAC what filters to use on the fly and maybe some other stuff, with some typical mention of the pre-ringing/apodizing stuff that Meridian love to talk about, and something about proprietary sampling/convolution. I just found this article after I wrote above post, have not read it yet but the title is pretty much as expected: https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/163302855-is-mqa-doa
TMoney Posted January 9, 2017 Report Posted January 9, 2017 2 minutes ago, mypasswordis said: From what I read, you must have a DAC with the special decoder to hear an MQA file the way it was intended. Tidal has the MQA software decoder built in so it is able to "unfold" the file. The next version of Audirvana will have it also. 2
mypasswordis Posted January 9, 2017 Report Posted January 9, 2017 ^ interesting, will be curious to see how many more adopt it. I would love to see proponents of MQA attempt a single or double blind with 256kbps mp3, 16/44, MQA, and 24/96 versions of the same track. So would the people at Schiit and Benchmark, I'm sure.
gepardcv Posted January 9, 2017 Report Posted January 9, 2017 1 hour ago, TMoney said: The next version of Audirvana will have it also. Audirvana 2.6.4 seems to work with the Tidal "master" recordings today. Not sure if that means Audirvana already supports MQA or if the files aren't actually MQA.
Dusty Chalk Posted January 10, 2017 Report Posted January 10, 2017 Does anyone know if there's a way to figure out what bitrates are going to the DAC on a Windows computer? Listening to Black Sabbath now. From memory (several months), it sounds a little less harsh, but that's from memory, it's going to require some contortions to find my downloads, which got lost and not restored when I switched computers. (Because I found them too harsh to listen to repeatedly.)
CarlSeibert Posted January 11, 2017 Report Posted January 11, 2017 Best I can tell from the Roon forum, some streamer apps (including Roon) can pass the MQA stream though to an MQA DAC. Some apps (Tidal, and soon several others, including Roon) can our will eventually be able to transcode the stream to whatever resolution it represents. But i can't see how the matching filter thing could be implemented for an arbitrary DAC. If so, software decoding won't be able to provide the "complete" MQA expense. So, for me, it's "95% of 95%", whenever I can figure out the logistics of getting the signal to the DAC in the system I actually want to use it in.
Grahame Posted January 18, 2017 Author Report Posted January 18, 2017 Meanwhile ... 900+ MQA albums discovered on Tidal https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10VtON9VjMAt3uyHC2-Oo2MjIa3orv9DKZfwiRQKmTAA/edit#gid=945476039 2
Dusty Chalk Posted January 18, 2017 Report Posted January 18, 2017 Wait Blue Man Group have another studio album? But it is a dup, so don't know which one to play.
VPI Posted January 23, 2017 Report Posted January 23, 2017 So how will Sprint handing out the service to their customers affect the overall streaming of Tidal?
CarlSeibert Posted January 23, 2017 Report Posted January 23, 2017 Dunno. I have Sprint, so I guess I'll hear something eventually. I'll post when I do. And maybe this will put Tidal on less shaky ground. Hopefully. 1
Grahame Posted March 2, 2017 Author Report Posted March 2, 2017 Meanwhile... Tidal may have some lossless competition from Spotify http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/1/14776780/spotify-hi-fi-preparing-launch-lossless-audio-tier 4
CarlSeibert Posted March 2, 2017 Report Posted March 2, 2017 Interesting. A good thing if it comes to pass. Fascinating that removing the head jack makes it possible for people to want decent quality. An alternative factoid. Or some part of marketing that I don't understand. Also interesting that Spotify isn't profitable yet.
grawk Posted March 2, 2017 Report Posted March 2, 2017 removing the headphone jack is why I got a dac/amp
Grahame Posted March 17, 2017 Author Report Posted March 17, 2017 (edited) Meanwhile ... HIGHRESAUDIO TO STOP OFFERING MQA Online music provider to drop MQA, claiming format 'not lossless' Via: http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/highresaudio-to-stop-offering-mqa/ Technical analysis paper https://www.xivero.com/blog/hypothesis-paper-to-support-a-deeper-technical-analysis-of-mqa-by-mqa-limited/ Conclusion / Summary points 1) MQA is in fact “lossy” because it alters the bit-depth and frequency response (magnitude & phase) and therefore time domain appearance of the original high resolution audio file by applying none-linear-phase filters impacting the critical audio spectrum (e.g. 4dB attenuation at 40kHz). 2) An alternative compression scheme that does not show those adverse effects has been described above and can be used for streaming applications or mobile high resolution audio players, with limited memory, to store at least 40% more audio files. Discuss Edited March 17, 2017 by Grahame
Grahame Posted March 17, 2017 Author Report Posted March 17, 2017 Also Linn state : https://www.linn.co.uk/blog/mqa-is-bad-for-music
grawk Posted March 17, 2017 Report Posted March 17, 2017 attenuation at 40khz? Won't someone think of the poor bats!
Dusty Chalk Posted March 17, 2017 Report Posted March 17, 2017 Yeah, my first impression was, "critical?", but...any difference is a difference, so it's not lossless. Lossless has a very specific meaning. 2
Grahame Posted March 26, 2017 Author Report Posted March 26, 2017 Meanwhile ... https://gizmodo.com/streaming-music-services-from-most-screwed-to-least-sc-1793612699 1
Grahame Posted May 26, 2017 Author Report Posted May 26, 2017 Meanwhile ... http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7809477/tidal-ceo-jeff-toig-departure-jeffrey-new-executive https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/tidal-ceo-jeff-toig-exits-jay-z-1202445915/
Grahame Posted August 3, 2017 Author Report Posted August 3, 2017 Meanwhile ... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywgeek/why-spotify-lowered-the-volume-of-songs-and-ended-hegemonic-loudness
MexicanDragon Posted August 12, 2017 Report Posted August 12, 2017 On 8/3/2017 at 6:43 PM, Grahame said: Meanwhile ... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywgeek/why-spotify-lowered-the-volume-of-songs-and-ended-hegemonic-loudness So Spotify finally caught up with everyone else? That's nice.
Hopstretch Posted August 21, 2017 Report Posted August 21, 2017 Big TIDAL app update and now their top recs for me are Jay-Z and some likely young chap called A$AP Ferg. So, yeah, right in my wheelhouse then. 1
mypasswordis Posted August 21, 2017 Report Posted August 21, 2017 Did you check out the new kodak black mixtape tho... straight fire fam ??? 1
MexicanDragon Posted August 21, 2017 Report Posted August 21, 2017 Check out this track in TIDAL: "Shabba" by A$AP Ferg, A$AP Rocky http://tidal.com/track/21787458Love this track.Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk 1
Hopstretch Posted August 21, 2017 Report Posted August 21, 2017 Is there an A$AP Shitty, or does that just go for all of them? 1
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